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10 Things Fans Don't Know They Can Do in Stardew Valley

Since StardewValley has been out for a couple of years now, you might think you know all there is to know about the game. You’ve grown all types of crops, found everyone’s favorite gifts, and pillaged the caves ‘til you could pillage no more. But do you know all the secrets?

Despite its appearance as a simple farming role-playing game, there are plenty of hidden quests and little details for you to uncover in this delightful game. There’s actually a lot of depth to it, and some of your choices have notable consequences. Read on for 10 things you didn’t know you could do in the world of Stardew Valley.

10. Grow Giant Crops

By now, you’ve probably planted every type of crop in the game. You’ve even got ahold of the Coffee Bean plant and the Sweet Gem Berry! But did you know that you can get giant crops? If you have a 3x3 patch of fully-grown cauliflowers, melons, or pumpkins—as long as the middle one is watered—there’s a chance they’ll turn into a giant crop. And when you harvest them, they give you way more produce than a standard crop (from 15 to 21 yields). It's pretty cool, right? Plus you harvest them using your axe, which feels pretty awesome.

9. Put Mayor Lewis’s Underwear In Soup

Every summer, the Luau Festival comes around, and with it the chance to impress (or totally disgust) the governor. But you can give him and Mayor Lewis the shock of their lives by putting in Lewis’s ‘lucky purple shorts’.

Once you’ve got the shorts from Marnie’s room, hold onto them until the Luau, put them in the soup, and watch the fantastic reactions. Marnie and Lewis are gobsmacked, and Lewis furiously rants at the town for this despicable prank. But no one will know it was you, so who cares? That's what he gets for asking you to fetch his so-called 'shorts'.

8. Collect Bizarre Statues

You may have noticed that some of the Lost Books you find are a little strange. One of them, titled simply "???," is just a bunch of nonsensical words. However, the first letters of each word, put together, form phrases. One example is "DUCK MAYO SALOON."

The meaning is simpler than you think: put each item inside a box in the matching location, and you’ll receive a reward. What kind of reward, you might wonder? The weirdest statues in the game. They look bizarre with names like "??Pinky Lemon??" and "??HMTGF??." They’ll add a sense of intrigue to your home, that’s for sure!

7. Unlock A Casino

In the Backwoods you’ll have seen the Tunnel, but if you ventured inside, did you notice the panel hidden in the darkness? Place a battery-pack in it and you’ll see a note from someone named Mr. Qi. It's here that the quest begins. This Mr. Qi will ask you to put several different things in different places (even including the mayor’s fridge).

It’s a fun addition to the game, and you never know what you’ll do next. And what's your reward for all this running around? Access to the Casino in Calico Desert, where you can even meet Mr. Qi himself.

6. Find Secret Notes

As of the 1.3 update, players can find secret notes with the magnifying glass, following the "A Winter Mystery" quest. Secret notes can hold all kinds of mysteries: the locations of hidden treasures, or the favorite items of a villager. Thank goodness for that – I can’t keep shoving different vegetables down their throats until they love one!

A cool example is Note #13, which tells you to check the bush above the playground at 12pm on the last day of the season. It’s pretty self-explanatory: on the 28th of any season, do as it says and you’ll find a cute little Junimo plush! Sweet!

5. Run Joja Corp Out Of Town

You might think that JojaMart is a bit of an eyesore in Stardew Valley: a lone, clinical supermarket in the middle of the homely town, not to mention it threatens the local economy. Well, it turns out you can get rid of them once and for all.

Firstly, do not buy the membership from Morris. Unless that is, you want the community center to be destroyed, and Joja’s corporate claws to take hold of the town.

Next, complete the community center bundles. If you do every single one, you’ll get a glorious cutscene where the townspeople fight back, and Morris and his Joja minions leave town forever! Yay!

4. Catch Legendary Fish

You might have thought legendaries were only in Pokémon, but they’re actually in Stardew Valley, too! As described in one of the lost books, there are five legendary fish in the valley: the Crimsonfish, Angler, Glacierfish, Mutant Carp, and the Legend. Excluding the Mutant Carp, which lives in the sewer year-round, there is one available in each season. They can only be caught once, and they require a high fishing skill – the Legend being the hardest with a required level 10. They’re worth a ton of money, but you might prefer to keep them as trophies to show off your hard work. Go on, you’ve earned it.

3. Be A Heartbreaker

Some players take their relationships in the game very seriously, staying loyal to their sweetheart and trying to keep them happy. But for some, a game like this is an opportunity for the kind of naughty fun you can't have in real life. To confess feelings for a character, you must give them a bouquet. But what you might not know is that you can actually give bouquets to every single eligible person in town — at the same time! Not only that, but when you marry one, the rest will still be classified as boyfriends or girlfriends!

2. Erase Your Spouse’s Memory

Alas, all is not always sunny in Stardew Valley. If you and your spouse just aren’t making it work anymore, you can divorce them. But maybe you aren’t content with breaking their heart once? In the Witch’s Hut is the Dark Shrine of Memory, which, in exchange for 30,000g, erases your ex’s memories of marriage, making them believe it never happened. That is some Eternal Sunshine-style plot twist. So if you really wanted to, you could do it all over again. And again. And again. Or, you know, you could just stick to farming peacefully.

1. Turn Your Children Into Doves

There’s another shrine in the Witch’s Hut that can do some seriously messed up things. Are your pixelated children the bundles of joy you were hoping for, or do you crave the easy life from before they were around? Offer the Dark Shrine of Selfishness a prismatic shard, and you can have that again. This shrine literally turns your kids into doves, and they fly away forever. And I mean forever — this is a permanent change, so make sure you definitely want it. Thank goodness we can’t do that in the real world, or the dove population would get out of control!